18 quotes
Till women are more rationally educated, the progress in human virtue and improvement in knowledge must receive continual checks.
A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792)
It is justice, not charity, that is wanting in the world.
A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792)
Taught from their infancy that beauty is woman's sceptre, the mind shapes itself to the body, and roaming round its gilt cage, only seeks to adorn its prison.
A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792)
A modest man is steady, an humble man timid, and a vain one presumptuous.
A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792)
Independence I have long considered as the grand blessing of life, the basis of every virtue; and independence I will ever secure by contracting my wants, though I were to live on a barren heath.
A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792)
How can a rational being be ennobled by anything that is not obtained by its own exertions?
A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792)
To be a good mother — a woman must have sense, and that independence of mind which few women possess who are taught to depend entirely on their husbands.
A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792)
Till society is very differently constituted, parents, I fear, will still insist on being obeyed, because they will be obeyed, and constantly endeavour to settle that power on a Divine right, which will not bear the investigation of reason.
A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792)
If women be educated for dependence; that is, to act according to the will of another fallible being, and submit, right or wrong, to power, where are we to stop?
A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792)
Should it be proved that woman is naturally weaker than man, from whence does it follow that it is natural for her to labour to become still weaker than nature intended her to be?
A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792)
Women are systematically degraded by receiving the trivial attentions which men think it manly to pay to the sex, when, in fact, men are insultingly supporting their own superiority.
A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792)
Tyrants and sensualists are in the right when they endeavour to keep women in the dark, because the former want only slaves, and the latter a play-thing.
A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792)
It would be an endless task to trace the variety of meannesses, cares, and sorrows, into which women are plunged by the prevailing opinion that they were created rather to feel than reason, and that all the power they obtain, must be obtained by their charms and weakness.
A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792)
It is vain to expect virtue from women till they are in some degree independent of men; nay, it is vain to expect that strength of natural affection which would make them good wives and mothers. Whilst they are absolutely dependent on their husbands they will be cunning, mean, and selfish.
A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792)
It is a melancholy truth; yet such is the blessed effect of civilization! the most respectable women are the most oppressed; and, unless they have understandings far superiour to the common run of understandings, taking in both sexes, they must, from being treated like contemptible beings, become contemptible.
A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792)
How many women thus waste life away the prey of discontent, who might have practised as physicians, regulated a farm, managed a shop, and stood erect, supported by their own industry, instead of hanging their heads surcharged with the dew of sensibility, that consumes the beauty to which it at first gave lustre.
A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792)
Women becoming, consequently weaker, in mind and body, than they ought to be...have not sufficient strength to discharge the first duty of a mother; and sacrificing to lasciviousness the parental affection...either destroy the embryo in the womb, or cast if off when born. Nature in every thing demands respect, and those who violate her laws seldom violate them with impunity.
A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792)
I see not the shadow of a reason to conclude that their [the sexes'] virtues should differ in respect to their nature. In fact, how can they, if virtue has only one eternal standard? I must therefore, if I reason consequentially, as strenuously maintain that they must have the same simple direction as that there is a God.
A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792)